


Twenty-five Christmas Days

by Anney



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Christmas, First Kiss, Fluff, Growing Up, M/M, You Have Been Warned, but not too angsty, there is an excessive amount of christmas clichés
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:30:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21864160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anney/pseuds/Anney
Summary: Eric has the distinct feeling that every past Christmas of his life – the merry ones and the lonely ones, and all the first times and all the heartbreaks – have served the greater purpose of leading up to this moment – standing in the snow-sprinkled lawn, staring at the man he loves while his fingers fiddle nervously with the tiny velvet-clad box that burns a hole in his pocket.~Eric Dier celebrates Christmas over the years.
Relationships: Dele Alli/Eric Dier
Comments: 21
Kudos: 72





	Twenty-five Christmas Days

**Author's Note:**

> It’s a miracle that I pulled this off in time for Christmas.  
Obviously, everything is fictional.  
Enjoy!

Eric Dier doesn't remember his first Christmas. But – really – does anyone?

*

He doesn't remember his second Christmas either, but his mum loves to tell the story of how he tried to kick one of the shiny red baubles hanging from the Christmas tree and toppled the whole tree to the ground.

His sister laughed hysterically, and his mum cried in relief when she realized he wasn’t injured, and Eric tried to blame the whole thing on the family’s tabby cat.

“This one is going to be a football player,” his mum said.

But isn't that what all mums say? 

*

Eric has nothing but fond, vague memories of his third Christmas.

It’s one of his first memories ever – the family all gathered in their little red brick house in a crooked cul-de-sac just outside of Cheltenham.

He remembers his dad putting up the decorations in the front garden, streams of holly adorning the white-paned windows, tiny multicoloured lightbulbs hanging from the trees outside, and the big Christmas wreath nailed to the blue front door. He remembers his mum’s homemade gingerbread cookies and the delicious smell of roast turkey flowing through the house. He remembers the satisfying crackling sound of the fire as they gathered around the white marble fireplace to open presents on Christmas Day.

In the middle of the living room, there is a dark wood archway, and on Christmas Day his dad makes them all stand up straight against its flat wooden pillar, carving the wood with a pocketknife to mark their height.

His eldest sister organizes a makeshift nativity play, bossing all the kids around, and Eric just stumbles around dressed as a reindeer, unsure of what he is supposed to do.

But maybe that was his fourth Christmas. Or the fifth. Or the sixth. He can't be too sure.

Time passes by funnily when you're a kid.

*

On his seventh Christmas, Eric realizes that he loves this time of the year.

Christmas means that school is over. It means writing letters to Santa, and passing the days eagerly counting down to the 25th, the chocolates on the calendar always mysteriously vanishing faster than the days go by.

It means waking up early on Christmas Day, to a house full of presents, full of warm food, and happy faces, and love. It means listening to the carols that play on the radio and gathering around the TV to watch the matches on Boxing Day.

In the buildup for Christmas, Eric looks out the window first thing every morning, hoping that it snowed. And when he finally sees the first fluffy snowflakes falling down from the quiet grey skies, he runs outside, jumping up and down in excitement.

“It’s snowing!” Eric screams, his face red and fingers freezing under his woollen mittens, as he attempts to catch the falling snowflakes.

His mum laughs and whispers, “First snow. Make a wish, Eric.”

And, because at Christmas time there is magic in the air, his wishes always come true.

*

His eight Christmas is also his first _Natal_.

In Portugal, there is no white Christmas. There is no hoping for snow, no hot cocoa by the fireplace, no need for cosy knitted scarves with little mittens to match.

The sun shines brightly on Christmas Day, and his parents take him and his siblings for a stroll on the beach. Quite a few people are walking by in the fine white sand – a couple walking a Labrador dog; a fisherman carrying his gear and a bucket full of fish; random people of all ages, with their trousers rolled up at the ankles, dipping their toes into the vast blue ocean. They smile kindly as he passes by, and they nod their heads and utter greetings that he doesn’t understand, in a cheerful tone and a foreign tongue.

So, this is _Natal_. It is warm and exotic and sprinkled with the welcoming kindness of strangers that does little to quench the ruthless feeling of not belonging that seems to have settled in his stomach.

Eric feels a deep tug in his chest that makes his throat close up as he looks at the vast expanse of sand and sea, and he imagines it is a snow-covered hill that he is seeing instead. There is a Portuguese word for that feeling – but, of course, Eric hasn’t learned Portuguese yet.

He kicks off his trainers and socks and he rolls up his trousers and stares at the ocean head-on, like a challenge.

There is no white Christmas in Portugal because in this country everything is blue. A blue, blue Christmas.

He dips his feet in, anyway.

*

By the time his ninth Christmas rolls around, Eric has fallen in love with the country that is now his home.

School is out in mid-December, and he waves his new friends goodbye. The Christmas tree is up in their new home, in the outskirts of Lisbon, and his dad hangs the blinking lights outside, on the orchard trees in the backyard.

Eric learns about some weird Christmas traditions at school, and his mum spends the whole month planning the festivities, delighted with the prospect of having a proper _Natal_, portuguese-style.

They have a big family dinner on Christmas Eve. They eat codfish and potatoes instead of roast turkey, and in the dinner table, next to the christmas pudding, there is _bolo rei_ – which, as Eric unfortunately finds out, is an equally disgusting dessert consisting of stale cake with an excessive amount of candied fruits.

At midnight, they head out to church and he sits impatiently through the _missa do galo_ (the cockerel’s mass, at least the name is funny) before they get to go back home and open the presents.

He gets a brand-new bike, and he spends Christmas Day pedalling through the neighbourhood, shouting “_Feliz Natal_!” to his neighbours.

He does miss Cheltenham, though. And he still dreams about the red brick house, and the cold mist, and the white snowflakes falling slowly over the crooked cul-de-sac.

_Saudade_, that’s the word his friends use. There is no accurate definition, but he understands well what it means, when, sometimes, he still gets overwhelmed by the familiar tugging feeling in his chest, a deep void that aches where a part of him used to be but has gone missing.

_Saudade_.

Sometimes Eric thinks that he came to Portugal just to learn the meaning of that word.

*

For his tenth Christmas, Santa brings him a full England kit (not that he still believes in Santa, that’s for little kids). It is white with navy blue shorts and red trimmings, complete with white knee-high socks. Three lions on a shirt, and a huge number seven on the back. He traces the name just above it. _Beckham_.

Eric reckons people are still upset that Beckham went to Spain over the summer, but Eric thinks that it is a bit unfair. People have all kinds of different reasons to change. Maybe Beckham’s parents made him move to a sunnier country too.

He writes Santa a thank you note and tapes it to the fireplace.

(Maybe he still believes in Santa, just a tiny bit).

*

The following year is all about football.

It’s the year of the Euro in Portugal, and Eric goes to see England play for the first time. He cries when England lose their first match against France, he cheers when they reach the quarterfinals, and he sulks for an entire week when Beckham’s penalty goes over the bar and England are knocked out of the tournament by Portugal. (Maybe it _is_ a curse, as dad always says. Maybe they will never be able to win a penalty shootout.)

Eric starts playing football at Sporting Academy, training a couple of times during the week, and playing seven-a-side tournaments on the weekend. Eric is shorter and scrawnier than most of the other kids – he hasn’t had that growth spurt yet. But he is not afraid of the challenge, he thrives in it, taking on the older players with skill and little concern. His coaches say he has _potential_.

On his eleventh Christmas, it rains for an entire week. Eric and his brothers have taken to playing football indoors, kicking about with whatever makeshift ball they can find – a crumpled newspaper, a clump of tinfoil scraps, and, yes, the occasional red plastic bauble lifted from the Christmas tree.

“Stop doing that, immediately!” mum yells when he breaks a bauble for the fifth time.

She doesn’t think it’s cute anymore.

*

On his fourteenth Christmas, his parents have some friends over.

They're a loud bunch. One couple – the Pritchards – talks with his parents in fluent English with the funny accents of someone who has lived abroad for so many years that they have forgotten how the words are supposed to sound. Yet, they sing Christmas carols, and they get drunk on eggnog, and at three p.m. they tune into BBC on cable TV to watch the Queen’s speech.

There are a couple of kids about his age too, though Eric ends up sitting next to Archie Pritchard, who spends all day bragging about the brand-new exclusive Wii console his dad brought from Japan.

A lady that works with his mum brings her daughter. She is pretty, with kind hazel eyes and tanned skin, and her hair shines with golden streaks of silky sunlight in a way that makes Eric feel funny.

“I'm Maria,” she introduces herself with a bright smile, and Eric thinks it's the most beautiful smile he has ever seen. 

Funnily enough, that is the exact same thought that crosses his mind when he sees Dele for the first time. But, of course, he hasn't met Dele yet. He won't for another eight years.

By his fourteenth Christmas, Maria has the most beautiful smile he has ever seen.

“_Feliz Natal_,” she whispers and kisses his cheek.

And that smile is all Eric dreams about for a while.

*

Eric puts extra care on choosing his clothes and combing his hair flat just before his fifteenth Christmas dinner. He even tucks in his shirt, and he may or may not have stolen dad's aftershave.

“Look at you,” his mum fusses over him, straightening the collar of his shirt. “My handsome young man,” she says with that extra loving tone laced with just a hint of teasing and a knowing look that Eric chooses to ignore.

She kisses his forehead, and he gently shooes her off.

“Ah, every mother's curse,” she sighs exaggeratedly. “When the kids get too old for mummy’s kisses.” She smiles, and the knowing look is back on her face. “Maria is in the living room with your sisters. Go say hello.”

He does manage to mutter “_Olá_,” and not much else before he feels himself blush and start to stutter. Maria gives him a sympathetic smile and then she is being pulled away by his sisters, girly giggles lingering behind.

He spends most of Christmas dinner sneaking glances at Maria across the table and trying to avoid actual eye contact at the same time, a task in which he fails spectacularly.

They finish dessert, and Eric waits for the right opportunity to slip out unnoticed while the adults linger around the table, engaged in a boring conversation about the financial crisis and subprime mortgages, whatever those are.

He walks out the kitchen door into the back garden, welcoming the damp breeze that cools his face. His dad put up the Christmas lights on the orchard trees outside, and Eric always feels mesmerized by the glow of the tiny multi-coloured lights that seem to flicker and melt into the misty air like a thousand dancing stars in the sky.

He hears the door open behind him, but he doesn't turn, his eyes magically glued to the myriad of blinking lights.

“Eric.”

Maria stops in front of him, looking curiously up at him.

“Isn't it beautiful?” he asks, and he knows that's the kind of thing that the other boys would call him weird for, not that he cares.

“What?” Maria frowns.

“The Christmas lights,” he says, but he looks at Maria instead, with her pretty smile and long eyelashes and shiny golden hair that reflects the glowing orbs.

“Yes,” she says, briefly glancing over her shoulder at the orchard trees. “They're beautiful.”

“I have a gift for you,” Eric says, and he doesn’t stutter this time. He reaches into his pocket and fishes out a slightly crumpled envelope. “It's nothing special, just a card.” He swallows nervously.

He watches her as she reads it – the handmade card that he spent one week working on, pouring his heart out in what he will later recall as an unfortunate bout of adolescent poetry.

“It's... huh,” she looks up hesitantly and bites on her bottom lip. “It's cool.”

She smiles but she seems uneasy, shuffling her weight between her feet. “Listen, your mum is looking for you. She asked me to come find you.”

“Oh.”

Eric waits in the awkward silence for something more, but Maria just stares embarrassedly at the ground.

“I should go back inside then,” he finally says, turning away towards the house. It was a stupid idea anyway.

“Wait.” Her hand reaches out to his arm, and she slips their hands together, slender fingers weaving around his own.

“Thank you,” she says. “For the card.” And then she steps on her tiptoes and kisses his mouth.

Her lips taste wonderfully of salted toffees and peppermint candy, and it makes Eric's head spin around fast. It's his first kiss and it lasts only for the briefest of moments before Maria slips away into the house, and his heart seems to burst out of his chest like a supernova in the skies.

They see each other for a few weeks, but Maria leaves him just before his birthday and starts dating Archie Pritchard instead.

It is at that moment that Eric Dier decides that he hates Christmas.

*

Eric spends most of his sixteenth Christmas hiding in his room, brooding alone to the sound of poignant indie songs with way too much ukulele that play on repeat in his lime green iPod.

He avoids going out with his friends to the _cafés_ or the shopping mall. Once school is over, he only leaves the house for football practice, and he prays every day that the bus driver doesn’t turn the radio on – if he has to listen to George Michael whining about his last Christmas one more time, he might just throw up.

His sister Daisy teases him relentlessly, though Eric has a feeling that she is trying both to annoy him and to cheer him up.

His mum complains loudly about ‘moody teenagers’, but she hugs him for no reason and makes him hot cocoa just like she used to when he was a kid, and she _forgets_ to invite Maria’s parents for Christmas that year.

*

On his seventeenth Christmas, Eric finds out that he likes boys as well. Or, rather, he does something about it.

His family moved back to England that year, and Eric is staying alone in Lisbon, hoping to break through the ranks at Sporting. 

A couple of the academy lads go out on Christmas Eve, to a party at a nearby club filled with the lonely souls who have nowhere else to go on Christmas.

Eric sees him first, standing by the bar – a tall and handsome stranger who catches his eye and sends a thrilling shiver down his spine. When the man turns around, their eyes lock, pulled together by an invisible force, and Eric just can’t look away.

It takes a few whiskey shots before their silent staring contest becomes a hushed conversation, and Eric learns that the stranger is taking a gap year to travel the world. He blushes when this stranger touches his wrist tenderly, and he licks his bottom lip unconsciously as he stares at the man’s plump lips.

And it takes a few shots more before the conversation turns into a slow dance, hips grinding together to the rhythm of nondescript techno music; before Eric dazedly drags him across the dancefloor in the vague direction of the back of the club; before he comes apart under the stranger’s lips and turns to mush in his hands in the dimly-lit club bathroom. It’s all over too fast, and the stranger kisses his lips one last time before he disappears forever, leaving Eric alone with a strangely satisfying feeling of accomplishment.

*

His eighteenth is not really Christmas, and it’s not Natal either.

Liverpool is cold and rainy, and unforgiving. The red-bricked buildings are a cruel reminder of the Cheltenham house that he still dreams about sometimes, and the murky still waters of the Mersey river look nothing like the sparkling blue ocean he left behind in Lisbon. The chained-up birds on top of the Liver Building hover ominously over the docks and they seem to mock him; to remind him that he is bound to this city that never felt like home.

He has instant noodles for Christmas dinner and facetimes briefly with his family, dismissing them with a big fake smile and assurances that he is fine. He doesn’t want to get in the way of their celebrations, and there is no one else he can talk to – no one is online on Christmas Day, and roaming is too expensive anyway.

It’s the loneliest Christmas Eric has ever had.

_Saudade_ doesn’t even begin to describe the gaping hole in his chest.

*****

On his nineteenth Christmas _–_ you know how this goes.

Maybe he can fast-forward now. Things don’t get interesting until a few years later, anyway.

*

On his twenty-second Christmas Eric finds himself dressed in an ugly Spurs-issued knitted reindeer sweater, attempting to play Mario Kart for the cameras and trying to remember what godforsaken reason made him agree to this. By his side, Dele laughs hysterically at his inability to make a big-nosed dinosaur named Yoshi drive in a straight line.

_Dele_, his new teammate, whom he didn’t quite like at first, but quickly and inexplicably turned into his best friend.

_Dele_, with the quirky eyebrows and the shy smile (the most beautiful smile Eric has ever seen), that is impossible to stare away from.

_Dele_, who arrived in his life without warning and turned it upside down.

“Tell you what, Eric. You are _bad_ at this,” Dele says, with a cheeky smile, and – _for fuck’s sake_ – Eric can’t fight the blush that spreads on his cheeks.

_Why is it so hot in this room?_ he wonders. _Seriously_, _why does this stupid reindeer sweater itch so much?_ And he has to pull the offending garment away from his collarbone every two seconds. _And why is his heart beating so damn fast?_

He refuses to consider the obvious answer. He refuses to entertain, even for a second, the thought that he _might_ just have a giant crush on his teammate.

And Eric feels like the world’s biggest hypocrite, because, for all his denial, he just can’t help himself – like he can’t help but to blush furiously in response to Dele’s witty banter – and he thinks he might drown in embarrassment, but he has never backed down from a challenge before, so – _screw it_, he thinks, before he lets his smirk match Dele’s lopsided grin, and he answers in a low, purred voice, mortifyingly close to flirting.

“Last round. Winner takes all.” And he extends his right hand do Dele, hoping that the microphones don’t catch the thundering sound of his heart hammering in this chest. “No quitting now. Pinky promise.”

*

Playing in the Premier League means, essentially, no Christmas celebrations.

It means training session on Christmas Eve, mandatory diet on the 25th, and league defining matches on Boxing Day.

In Eric’s world, Christmas comes second after football, which is why what he has come to fondly remember as his twenty-third Christmas doesn’t happen until the twenty-eighth of December.

They’ve travelled south for a late Boxing Day fixture at St. Mary’s. It’s freezing and pouring rain and two minutes after kick-off Spurs are already down one goal. His kit is soaking through and sticking unpleasantly to his skin, and Eric has never longed more for a warm fireplace (or a faraway white sand beach).

The miserable cold and the grim score don’t last long, though. Before half-time comes, Eric finds himself standing on the edge of the box, frozen in wonderment rather than cold, as he watches Dele rise gracefully in the air, lean body stretching upwards just a palm higher than Van Dijk, and heading the ball into the back of the net.

It feels like being set on fire, warmth spreading across his limbs as Dele jumps into his arms in celebration. He finds himself burying his face in the curve of Dele’s neck, and that’s when it hits him. Uncontrollably. Undeniably. Almost painfully.

He wants to kiss Dele.

His lips tingle where they briefly touch Dele’s neck. He can taste the salt and the rain in his damp skin, and he can smell the grass on his shirt, and he wants more, he wants _so much _more.

Dele shudders in his arms. Maybe he’s cold. Or maybe it is Eric’s heartbeat that pulses uncontrollably fast through his veins, like an electric current that jolts through where their bodies fit perfectly together, making them both shiver in unison.

He wants to hold Dele in his arms forever. He wants to push him against a wall, and he wants to fuck him slowly. He wants to feel his body writhing beneath him. He wants to taste the sweat as he bites on his collarbone. He wants to hear him moaning and pleading and crying out in ecstasy, with his eyes closed and his beautiful lips open and breathless.

Dele slips out of his embrace, warm body sliding down and away from his, and the cold hits Eric, more unforgivable than ever. Their eyes meet, and Dele’s gaze flashes like thunder, undecipherable and as stormy as the weather.

Eric shakes his head – he doesn’t know why; he just wants to shake away the hunger that roars in his chest. Dele turns away without a word, and Eric forces himself back in the game, back to the reality where Dele is his best friend and he doesn’t get to think about him that way.

It takes less than one hour after they arrive back in London for the Christmas party to be at full swing, and Eric is pretty sure that Jan regrets offering to host it in the first place.

The music blasts loudly on the speakers, an odd mix of Christmas tunes and Drake, as Sonny and Dele fight for control over the playlist. There is beer and eggnog, and Eric is just tipsy enough to stop feeling self-conscious about his ugly Christmas sweater and his lame dance moves.

When _Last Christmas_ comes on, Eric excuses himself with a grunt of “I hate this song,” leaving Sonny in the middle of a story he wasn’t really paying much attention to, anyways.

The mild alcohol-induced buzz in his brain slows his reflexes, and he almost collides with Dele on his way to the bathroom. He smiles apologetically and tries to move around him, but Dele stretches out his arms, blocking his path, with a grin.

“What are you doing?” Eric asks, but Dele doesn’t answer. He is looking up, drunken smile in his face. “Del, move.”

“I can’t.”

He searches Dele’s face, brows furrowed in worry as he tries to figure out what is wrong.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Dele looks up again and Eric follows his gaze to the bundle of mistletoe that dangles above the doorway (_and who on earth hangs mistletoe on a bathroom door?_)

“We’re stuck here,” Dele says with a boyish giggle, and Eric wonders how pissed he is right now. Dele plants his feet more firmly on the ground, a challenging look on his face.

“I can tackle you if I need to,” Eric says amusedly, but he doesn’t move, suddenly feeling heavy, like his limbs are underwater.

Dele’s eyes sparkle mischievously, and he bites on the corner of his bottom lip.

“That’s not how it works, Eric.” And, despite his previous assessment that he can’t move, Dele does move, stepping closer to Eric, their noses almost touching. “You have to kiss me.”

The stormy look is back in Dele’s eyes and, despite Eric’s best efforts to keep his feelings at bay, the painful hunger settles back in his heart, much more powerful than before.

“Del, what are you doing?”

“I’m waiting for you to kiss me.”

He searches Dele’s face for the familiar telltale sign that this is just an elaborate joke. _It’s just banter_, he reasons. _It has to be_. But he sees nothing but thundering irises and blown out pupils that stare at him with a certainty that makes him tremble.

“We can’t.” Eric swallows loudly, his palms sweating. “Someone might come in and-”

“You want to,” Dele says. It’s not a question, and it’s not a challenge. He says it like it’s just a casual observation, and Eric is so thrown off by it that he can’t find it in himself to lie.

“I do.”

And maybe Dele isn’t so sure of himself as he appears to be, because his knees falter and he exhales slowly through his nose, leaning slightly on the doorway.

“I want it, too,” he says, under his breath. “I need it. Because if you don’t kiss me right now, I’m going to explode.”

Dele’s eyes are hooded with emotion. He is shaking, Eric realizes, and he wants to hold him, to let his arms wrap around his waist and comfort him. Dele’s trembling fingers graze lightly across his chest.

“Eric, if we keep doing this, just-, standing on the edge of whatever this is between us and doing nothing about it, I will explode.” Dele is so close now that Eric can taste the beer in his breath. “And then I’ll do something really, _really_ stupid, like kissing you in the middle of the pitch for all the world to see how I feel about you.”

_Like I almost did today_.

Eric doesn’t know at what point Dele’s speech turned from a whisper against his ear into a mumble between his lips, hesitant tongue darting out to swipe across his bottom lip between each breathless confession.

And he doesn’t know either at what point an innocent kiss under the mistletoe turned into a frenzied snog in the bathroom. But he is the one trapping Dele against the sink now, heat building up and blood rushing south with each drag of lips against skin; he is the one tracing the smooth skin of his abdomen, and tasting his honey lips and making Dele whimper maddeningly in his ear. And when Dele boldly darts his fingers under the waistband of his pants, Eric has the distinct _déjà vu_ feeling that this might all be over too fast. _God, please don’t let it be over too fast. Please, don’t let it end, ever._

They kiss harder, all hungry touches and desperate bites, and they whisper between feverish kisses, “We should go to your place,” and “I’m not letting you drive.” They move in a hurried daze, mumbling half-assed excuses and hasty goodbyes. They climb into the back of a cab, and not even five minutes go by before Dele falls asleep with his head tucked against Eric’s shoulder and a peaceful smile on his lips, leaving Eric with his heart full of bliss and his dick painfully hard in his pants.

And one day, months later, Eric will wake up in bed next to Dele, and he will trace the constellation of freckles that dust his naked back – the ones he knows by heart now – and he will realize that he has no idea at which point the _oh-so-complicated whatever this is between_ _them_ turned so simply and easily into being madly and irreversibly in love.

*

“How do I Iook? Is this shirt alright?”

Eric sighs amusedly, rubbing his hands together to warm them in the biting cold. “For the hundredth time, you look fine. Relax.”

On his twenty-fourth Christmas, Eric brings Dele to meet his family.

“What if your parents don’t like me?”

It’s already January, and they’re standing at the front door of his parents’ house in the outskirts of London, where the whole family is gathering for a very, _very_ late Christmas dinner (‘Eric’s Christmas’, as Daisy mockingly calls it, rolling her eyes and sticking out her tongue, ‘because mummy’s special boy must have a special Christmas just for him.’)

“Del, of course, they will like you.” He cradles his cheeks between his hands, thumbs grazing over the sharp slope of his cheekbones. “After all, I take after them, and_ I_ like you.” He deposits a short, sweet kiss into Dele’s lips. “Just be your charming self.”

“Are you suggesting I should seduce your mum?” Dele asks with a sly smirk and a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“Ugh, no!” Eric groans, shaking his head vigorously. Only Dele could switch between a staggering lack of confidence and annoying smugness that quickly. “I hate you.” He doesn’t.

Dele grins. “You said you liked me just ten seconds ago,” he teases.

“Changed my mind,” Eric says playfully, ringing the bell to announce their arrival. “Let’s go inside.”

Like Eric predicted, his parents love Dele. His mum fawns over him, stuffing him with homemade food, and Dele does charm her with his well-timed compliments and his candid smiles (and Eric wonders if he’s even aware that he’s doing it). His dad ropes him into a long conversation about the merits of football youth leagues, which Dele survives with only a handful of panicked glances at Eric.

His brothers are mostly starstruck by his presence, and even Daisy, ever so protectively distrustful, falls smitten with Dele when she finds out she can easily convince him to tell embarrassing Eric stories, which Dele is no less delighted to share. 

It warms his heart, though. His favourite people in the world all together in the same place, celebrating Christmas – his very own special Christmas, _don’t let Daisy ever hear him say that_. Eric feels _full, _for lack of a better word; bursting at the seams with love and caring, and he feels that the pieces of the complicated puzzle that is his heart have finally started to align together. 

Eric regrets ever thinking that when Daisy pulls out the dusty photo albums from the bookshelf and Dele’s eyes twinkle in amusement as he flips through Eric’s utterly mortifying baby photos.

He feels his face reddening to a chorus of snorting and laughter and “Look how chubby you were!”, and _why on earth is he naked in so many photos? _

There is a photo of toddler Eric dressed as a reindeer, clutching a red Christmas bauble in his plump hands, and his mum gasps in excitement.

“Oh Dele, has Eric ever told you about that time he knocked the Christmas tree down?”

Eric groans and Dele doesn’t even try to hide his snickers behind his hand.

“Mum, not that story again.”

*****

Time flies too quickly in a year, and too much happens in between.

They play the World Cup in Russia. They make it to the quarterfinals, and Eric scores the winning penalty, and Dele jumps into his arms, warm and heavy and _real_. In that moment, everything feels right, and _it’s coming home_, Eric can feel it, his heart full of the same innocent hope he felt fourteen years ago when he went to see England play for the first time. _Football is coming home._

Except it is not, and next thing he knows they are losing the match for the consolation prize. Fourth place is not too bad, all things considered. Fourth place is pretty good if you look at it objectively. Which Eric does not.

Everything spirals down from there, at a speed he can’t keep up with. He doesn’t understand the feeling of anger that bubbles up in his chest, nor the fear of inadequacy that slowly invades his mind. He works harder for it, pushing himself to the limit, and he shuts down the rest of the world.

Dele is frightened. Eric can see that in the way that he clings to him sometimes, frantically looking for a reassurance that Eric cannot give. Dele is frightened, and after a while, he retreats to his shell and becomes a shadow of his former bubbly self. It makes Eric sick with guilt, that he is the cause of Dele’s worries; that he is hurting the person he loves the most, and he still can’t shake the hopelessness that eats him away. And when Dele tears up his hamstring and is sidelined for two months, Eric’s guilt becomes unbearable.

“We can’t do this anymore,” Eric whispers one day when they are lying in bed, and a single tear falls on Dele’s bare skin and trickles across the constellations on his back.

“We’re not good for each other,” he says, in the same place where he figured out he was in love.

He convinces himself that it is the right thing to do, that it is the selfless thing to do, even if his treacherous heart still seeks Dele’s eyes, searching for that spark that he saw two years ago when he wouldn’t let him go under the mistletoe. _Fight for us, _his heart screams – whether at Dele or at himself, he can’t be sure.

“Okay.” And with that Dele is out of his house, and out of his life.

In December his appendix almost bursts and Eric spends his twenty-fifth Christmas sick and lonely, in a house that suddenly feels too big just for him and the dogs.

On Boxing Day, Eric makes an effort to get out of the house, when the silence becomes too suffocating despite his siblings clearly coordinated random visits. He takes the dogs out for a walk around the neighbourhood, and he welcomes the fresh air and the biting cold that seem to help him break free from the dazed stupor he has been stuck in.

When he comes back, Dele is sitting on his doorstep.

He lets Clay and Cisco out of their leashes, and they run to greet Dele with waggling tails and barks of joy like they’ve missed him the most in the world.

“What are you doing here?”

He hates that his voice comes out so guarded and cold. He hates that his heart almost leaps out of his throat at the mere sight of Dele.

“Merry Christmas, Eric,” Dele says nonchalantly, laughing as Cisco slobs all over his face, like this is something they do every day. Like they didn’t stop speaking to each other months ago.

Eric sighs. “Dele…,” and he trails off because he’s not sure what he wants to say. Dele doesn’t share his hesitancy, though, because he is resolute in his ways.

“C’mon, we’re going out.”

“Where to?” Eric asks and he fleetingly thinks of his pathetic plan to curl up in his sofa and ignore the Boxing Day fixtures on TV.

“You’ll see,” Dele pets the dogs one last time before getting up. He smiles at Eric, and it makes alarm bells ring in his head.

“Del, this isn’t really a good idea…”

“Do you honestly want to spend the day here, watching a match you should be playing in instead?” There is a bitter edge to Dele’s voice as he unconsciously rubs his hamstring, and Eric wonders if Dele is doing this for himself as much as for Eric.

He doesn’t actually agree to it, but he ends up getting in Dele’s car, anyway. He doesn’t think to ask where they are going, and, in retrospect, he is pretty sure that Dele bets on him falling asleep, because Eric lets himself be lulled by the quiet roar of the engine in the comfortable silence and only stirs awake when the car stops to a halt and Dele shakes him gently.

“We’re here,” he whispers.

What hits him first, as he steps outside into the dusk, is the lack of Christmas decorations. There is no holly in the windowsills, and no multi-coloured lights blinking in the trees outside.

But even if it looks a little weathered by time, everything else is the same way that Eric remembers all those years ago – the red bricks, the white-panned windows, the chipped blue painted door.

Eric can't move. He can't speak. He can't breathe. The familiar tugging feeling squeezes deep in his chest, unforgivable and raw, with the force of memories long forgotten.

He stares speechless at the man beside him – the one who has been so vital in his life, yet so out of place in the setting of his childhood memories. Dele is looking at him, at the house, at the ground, his eyes shifting nervously around as he bites down on his bottom lip.

“H-how?” Eric croaks out, the unanswered questions making his head swim.

“You told me about this place,” Dele answers, now resolutely staring at the ground. “You talk about this place a lot, I don't know if you even notice.” He laughs, a bit dryly, and Eric wonders if it ever bothered Dele – how much he spoke about his childhood and his family and all the things that Dele never got to enjoy.

“Anyway, it always seemed that you were really happy here. You always talked about your magical Christmases, and-.” He takes a deep breath and he looks at Eric. “I thought you might need a little bit of that magic now.”

Eric stares at the vacant house, at its unkempt lawn and the overgrown trees where his father used to hang Christmas lights, and he is still at a loss for what to say because what he feels can't be put into words.

“It was probably a dumb idea,” Dele mutters when his stunned silence stretches for too long, and Eric jolts out of his daze.

“No, no! It was great,” he rushes to say. “It is a great idea, Dele. I just-” He rubs his hand over his face, scratching his buzz-cut hair.

_I just wasn't expecting it. _

_I'm just so happy that I might kiss you. _

_I just made a huge mistake in letting you go, and I don't know if I can take it back. _

“Thank you.” He curls his fingers under Dele's chin and pulls up gently, to look in his eyes. “I mean it, Dele. Thank you for thinking of it. Thank you for getting me out of the house and bringing me here.”

Dele smiles tentatively, and Eric feels too close for comfort. He is too aware of his skin tingling where they touch, too conscious of how he urges to kiss Dele and how he can't because they are no longer together and his heart aches in knowing that it is his own fault and it is too late to undo it. He drops his hand like it burns.

“Do you think we could go in?” he asks, coughing dryly to dispel his uneasiness.

Dele's eyes shift to the ground once more. “You can try,” he says, with a small smile. “It might be unlocked.”

The blue door does open with a squeak and lets them walk into a dusty, empty version of his childhood memories.

The white fireplace still stands, filling up the living room with its large marble tiles, and intricate designs. The wooden floors are dented where random pieces of furniture used to stand and they are worn out where their tiny feet have dragged through countless times, running back and forth around the house.

He shows Dele around, pulling him by his hand in and out if empty rooms and furnishing them with colourful memories and candid stories.

“This is where I used to hide when I was upset,” he says about the walk-in closet on his childhood bedroom. “I always liked to be alone, even then. One time, mum told us that our cat was sick, and I hid with him here for an entire day, in the hopes that it would make him feel better.”

“I didn’t take you for a cat person,” Dele utters.

“I loved that cat. But I stopped liking them after he died.”

Dele squeezes his hand with a sad smile, and he drags him into the next room. He chuckles along Eric’s stories and he follows him up and down the spiral staircase, hopping from one memory to the next.

An hour goes by before Eric realizes they have been holding hands the entire time, and, more surprisingly, he realizes that Dele hasn't mentioned it or pulled back. It's like they do this every day, and, maybe, the warm, grounding touch doesn't bother Eric that much.

“What is this?” Dele asks, inspecting the wooden archway in that divides the living room.

The dark wood is a little chipped around the edges, but the markings still stand out clearly, as if they were carved yesterday. And there it is, right about the level of his hip.

_Eric, 6 y/o_.

He traces the engraved words with his index finger.

“Our dad used to measure our height, every year on Christmas day,” he explains.

Dele snorts. “It's hard to believe that the big Dier wolf was ever that little,” he laughs, but his voice cracks a bit, too tense for casual banter.

Eric studies him, as he continues to trace the names carved on the wood. _Steffi_. _Daisy_.

“How did you find the right place?” he asks, and he watches Dele gulp, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down his throat. 

“Daisy helped,” he says with a shrug, but Eric knows his sister well enough to know that a favour this big doesn’t come cheap.

“How did you know the door would be unlocked?” he asks, and Dele inhales sharply, freezing like a deer caught in the headlights. 

“Promise me you'll hear me through,” he says, and Eric makes no promise, not out loud, but he nods his head slowly.

“As I said, Daisy helped me figure out which house it was exactly, and when I finally found it, it was listed for sale.” Dele hesitates, and it immediately dawns on Eric what is going on. Why they're here.

“_Was_?”

Dele’s eyes meet his, timid, and challenging, and hopeful, all at once.

“It's yours, if you want it.”

He wants a lot of things that he can’t have.

“Del, I can't-”

“I know what you're going to say,” Dele interrupts him. “I know you’re going to say that you can't accept it. But hear me out, okay?” He looks at him, beseechingly. “This is your home. And when I bought it, it was always meant for you to have it. This is a part of you, one that was suddenly within my reach to give back to you, and I simply took the opportunity.” He smiles a little. “It's just a two-hour drive from North London. I thought maybe you could come here on your days off, get out of the city. I know you would like that.”

The idea is appealing. In fact, it is perfect, _too_ perfect, and he is painfully aware of the amount of thought Dele put into this.

“Del, this is too much. It's too expensive.”

Dele snorts. “It's not like I can't afford it. There are certainly worse things I've wasted my money on, believe me.” Dele grins. “I even spoke to your mum about it, you know, to see if they wouldn’t be upset that I would buy their old house. She thought it was a wonderful idea at the time, and she gave me her blessing and all, so…”

“You talked to my mum,” Eric repeats after him, the thought registering slowly in his brain, and for the first time since the beginning of this conversation, it dawns on him that you can't just buy a house overnight, not even if you're a famous footballer with deep pockets. “How long have you been planning this?”

Dele swallows loudly. “I first saw the house for sale four months ago,” he says.

“We were together back then.” It comes out dry and matter-of-factly, but it is loaded with heavy implications.

_I thought you could come here on your days off_. Did Dele imagine them driving up to Cheltenham together? Did he buy the house for _them_ instead of just Eric?

“Yes, we were,” Dele says. “But that changes nothing. Listen, Eric, I don't expect anything from you. You broke up with me, and I-” He exhales loudly. “This isn't some desperate attempt to get back together, or anything like that. It is what it is. Think of it as an act of friendship. A Christmas gift, if you'd like.”

It makes Eric’s heart ache, forever missing some of its pieces.

“I'll think about it,” he says, and Dele beams like he won the lottery.

He missed that smile. The perfect, most beautiful smile he has ever seen, bright and full for the first time in months, instead of the cautiously restrained little smiles he gets if he’s lucky, these days.

“It's getting late.” Outside, the cold white clouds have faded completely in the darkening sky. “We should get back.”

They haven't even driven out of the neighborhood yet when Eric first sees it.

“Stop the car.”

Dele looks at him, with a worried frown. “What is it? Are you alright?”

And he sees it again, clear and bright, splattering against the windshield.

“Stop the car, Dele.” He beams excitedly.

He barely lets Dele pull up next to a vacant lot before he's dashing out of the car, running in the middle of the road with his arms open.

The scar in his abdomen stings a little with the sudden effort, and the cold air makes it hard to breathe, but he doesn't care, because they are all around him – fluffy white snowflakes falling slowly all over the crooked cul-de-sac.

He hears Dele shout out his name in the distance, but he just laughs. He laughs like he hasn't in a very long time, his head lolling back as waves of roaring laughter burst out of his chest, and snowflakes melt against his face.

“What are you doing?” Dele's breathless voice echoes two feet away, but he's laughing as well, looking at Eric like he has lost his mind.

“It's snowing!” Eric grins.

“I know.” Dele hugs his coat closer to his chest. “You're going to catch your death out here.”

“No, you don't understand.” Eric takes Dele's face in his hands, the soft skin so familiar under his thumbs. “It's the first snow.”

“Oh.” Dele smiles in acknowledgement, eyes glinting in the semi-darkness.

“Make a wish, Delboy,” he whispers, and Dele lets his eyelids flutter closed.

“I already did,” Dele whispers back, so close that his breath grazes Eric’s lips. He opens his eyes and they shine more fervently than ever. “Now it's up to you.”

And it feels right and so familiar when Eric leans in, like his lips never stopped kissing Dele's, like his hands never stopped holding his face, like their tongues didn’t forget the taste of each other.

Dele clings to him like a lifeline, bruising his lips with his own, digging his nails on the back of Eric’s neck. And Eric kisses back just as hard, just as desperate, but his fingers thread softly over Dele's hair and trace the outline of his razor-sharp cheekbones, a promise trickling in the soft touch.

They stumble blindly through the deserted road, eyes closed and lost into the kiss, until Dele's back meets the cold metal car door, and Eric fumbles with the lock, mouths never inching apart, until they are wrapped in each other in the leather back seat.

And it's like they never left. The way their bodies mould into each other, heat building up between them as hurried hands peel off the excess clothing. The way he knows the exact pressure that he should kiss Dele's neck with, so that it doesn't make him ticklish, but makes his squirm in pleasure instead. The way he knows that Dele keeps a bottle of lube on the backseat compartment, and if Eric stretches his arm, he can reach it while Dele curls his tongue over the leaking tip of his cock.

But at the same time, it's like rediscovering them all over again, all the things he never realized he had missed. The feeling of Dele clenching around his fingers, eyes locked in his while desperate moans escape his lips when Eric curls his fingers to hit the right spot. The tight heat that engulfs him as he slips inside Dele; as he moves, slowly and tenderly at first, then faster and harder, until he gets lost in the sensation and he has to bite on Dele's shoulder to stifle his groans. The way that Dele closes his eyes and falls quiet just before he reaches his orgasm, his lips parted in a silent moan and his hole clenching wildly around his cock, and the single whispered “_Eric”_ that rings in his ears, making him come inside Dele, as Dele comes all over his fist.

It takes several minutes for them to catch their breaths, and for Eric to realize that the feelings of guilt and shame he thought he should feel will never come.

Dele is curled up half on top of him in the ruined backseat, his finger drawing random patterns on Eric’s stomach, over the mess they've made. He traces softly over the scar of his surgery, and Eric shudders.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, craning his neck to look at him.

“It's a little sore,” Eric admits.

“I'm sorry,” Dele mumbles against his chest, and Eric deposits a little kiss on the top of his head. “I'm sorry I wasn't there for you.”

_I didn't let you. I pushed you away. _

“You didn't have to.”

“I wanted to. But you were so stubborn, and I was too proud,” he swallows loudly, and Eric tightens his arms around him, soothingly.

Dele looks at him again, eyes searching his. “I didn't mean for this to happen, you know.” He gestures between them. “I didn't bring you here so we could fuck in the back seat of my car.”

Eric laughs. “I know,” he says, and he tilts his head so he can kiss Dele on the lips. “I know.”

“I brought you here because I wanted to do something to make you feel better. To make you happy.”

“_You_ make me happy,” Eric says, and he is a fool for not realizing it sooner. “I was an idiot for letting you go.”

Dele cuddles against his chest, and he smiles against his bare skin, over his heart.

“And I was an idiot for not staying.”

*

There is a fire crackling in the white marble fireplace, and the blinking Christmas lights look like fireflies glowing in the front yard trees.

A huge oak table takes up half of the living room – not the original one, but an almost identical one that Eric found online and spent six weeks polishing and varnishing until it looked as good as new.

The living room floor is covered in big pillows to make up for the lack of sofas, and only half the walls are painted, because Eric and Dele decided that they should renovate the house themselves, driving up to Cheltenham whenever they get the chance.

It became a little habit of theirs, a way of escaping the sometimes suffocating pressure of their daily lives. It hadn’t been an easy year by any means; a year plagued with injuries and illnesses that cost Eric his starting spot on the lineup and his place on England’s squad.

The red brick house had become their safe place – not to run away from their problems, but where they could face them together, and the effort of building something together proved to be the best therapy to put their hardships into perspective.

The house became a mirror of their lives. On one of the first floor rooms, there is an entire wall covered in swirls and splatters of multicoloured paint (a product of the aftermath of the Champions League final); and the kitchen wall is only tiled halfway through (up to the exact spot where Eric pressed Dele against the wall and kissed him deeply, and promised to never let go). It's not perfect, but it's theirs, and unmistakably _home_.

And so, on his twenty-sixth Christmas, the Dier family gather once more for (a very late) Christmas dinner on the red brick house in the crooked cul-de-sac.

“Why is your boyfriend holding my daughter like she's going to explode?”

“Huh?” Eric sets the heavy roast turkey tray on the dining table, before looking inquisitively at Daisy and following her eye line to where Dele is, indeed, holding up his niece at an arm's length, looking like he doesn't have a clue of what to do with the toddler in his arms.

Eric chuckles at the sight. “He's on babysitting duty.”

“Someone better call child services,” Daisy says with a snort.

“Hey, be nice,” he scolds his sister, and sure enough when Dele looks their way, she gives him two thumbs up.

“Looks good on you,” she shouts at Dele, who grimaces, putting the kid down in a pile of pillows and plastic toys.

“So, what did you get him this year?” Daisy whispers to Eric as she watches Dele play with her daughter. “He bought you a house last year. Hard to top that.”

Eric hums, and he unconsciously searches in his jeans pocket for the square jewellery box that he’s been carrying around all day. 

“I figured something out,” he says noncommittally.

Daisy smirks, her eyes sparkling with joy. “It’s about time,” she says, and they exchange a smile, acknowledging the effortless understanding they have always shared (though neither sibling would admit to it out loud).

It’s only later, when their stomachs are full and the daylight has begun to fade outside, that Eric finds Dele alone, standing on the front garden and staring into the distance, where the little sparks of light flutter among the tree leaves. He doesn’t startle when Eric sneaks in behind him, and he melts into the embrace as Eric throws his arms around his middle.

“Merry Christmas, Delboy,” Eric whispers in his ear, and Dele turns in his arms to kiss him softly.

“Merry Christmas, Eric,” he answers against his lips.

It’s cold, and Dele shivers in his arms. It had started to snow at some point in the afternoon, and a thin white blanket is starting to cover the fresh-cut grass. Snowflakes fall randomly on Dele’s beanie, and tiny white specks get stuck on his long eyelashes as he looks up at Eric.

“It’s snowing,” Dele says, his lips curving on a smile. “Make a wish, Eric.”

And Eric has the distinct feeling that every past Christmas of his life – the merry ones and the lonely ones, and all the first times and all the heartbreaks – have served the greater purpose of leading up to this moment – standing in the snow-sprinkled front lawn of his childhood home, staring at the man he loves while his fingers fiddle nervously with the tiny velvet-clad box that burns a hole in his pocket.

He looks in Dele’s eyes, and they fill up his entire world.

_Dele_, with the quirky eyebrows and the perfect smile, that came into his life without warning and turned it upside down.

_Dele_, who permanently filled the missing piece in his heart, and made him realize that _home_ is not a place or a person, but a feeling – the feeling of loving and being loved; the feeling of being right where you’re supposed to be.

_Dele_, who is laughing openly and staring up at him with bright loving eyes, oblivious to what is about to happen.

_Make a wish, Eric._

“I already did,” Eric says, as he gets down on one knee, and he offers a wide-eyed Dele the tiny square box that holds two plain gold bands and his entire heart.

“Now, it’s up to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is it – my little Christmas project.  
Share with me what you think. Whether you liked it or hated it, feedback is always much appreciated.  
Find me on [tumblr](https://si-senor-lfc.tumblr.com/).  
Merry Christmas!


End file.
